were endemic across the industry, but that there were three recurring, intersecting areas. She says: “The characters and subjects that make up children’s literature, the authors and illustrators who create them, and the employees who ultimately act as gatekeepers to publication. Publishers complained that characters of colour and subjects regarding people of colour were unrelatable and unimaginable to their white audiences. They treated them as niche subjects and used self- perpetuating sales projections to justify this in their costings.”


Alongside her studies, Cherise set up a literary magazine, Desert Rose for women and fem non-binary people of colour. “It was very much a ‘learn as we went’ process, particularly how to corral submissions, filter them for the judges, raise the profile of the magazine, and secure funds for it. Luckily, we were all familiar with editorial work and we worked hard to secure four amazing judges: Erika T. Wurth, Joy Francis, Farhana Shaikh, and Dr Nora de Hoyos Comstock. We received so many beautiful submissions, and it really meant so much to publish them. The response was incredible and was so galvanising. It was clear that efforts and voices like this were exactly what the industry needed more of.” Cherise then went on to work with Jacaranda publishing where she led their fiction and young adult list. “It was wonderful to work with a company whose ethos aligned so well with my own. We didn’t have to explain to each other why we were interested in commissioning a Native dystopian fantasy, or a Black queer speculative fiction novel. It was a given that we were interested in telling as many inclusive stories as possible – and that we were interested in telling them well, with support to the authors who were writing them.”


During her time with Jacaranda, Cherise worked on the Twenty in 2020 campaign. “Being part of the initiative was an incredible honour. It was the first time ever a British publisher had published 20 Black British authors in one year before. Pretty damning of the industry that they had never done anything similar, and that a small, independent publisher was outdoing them in every way – but also what an amazing joy to get to work on everything from memoirs, to crime novels, to romance, to poetry, to speculative fiction! “It was an enormous task considering we didn’t publish close to that amount per year usually, but we all rose to the occasion and were incredibly passionate about its success. It was really wonderful to see a whole cohort of Black authors get to come up together, and to see how much they bonded with each other and still support each other to this day.” One of the books which Cherise worked


10 PEN&INC.


upon was Esuantsiwa Jane Goldsmith’s The Space Between Black and White. Esua was a key part of the Carnegies Diversity Review which was one of the drivers for the formation of Pen&inc. magazine. “Esua has been such a force for equity and inclusion, her influence can be felt in so many places. It was truly an honour to work with her on The Space Between Black and White. We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, and Esua accomplished so much in the time before I was even a twinkle in the scene’s eye. She was the first Black


woman president of Leicester University Students’ Union and Queen Mother of her village – a consistent and incredible force for Women’s Liberation and Black Power.”


Editing the manuscript also provided personal reflection as Cherise outlines. “Working on her memoir together was also personally meaningful as we were really able to bond over our shared experience being mixed-race and forging our identity and place in our communities. It was incredible to read about her journey and to see her continue


Spring-Summer 2026


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